


some feelings are impossible to place

by pupae



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Bipolar Disorder, Cheating, Epilepsy, Manic Episode, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Neurological Disorders, Non-Explicit Sex, Trans Character, epileptic auras, simple partial seizures
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-09
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-07-22 11:53:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7437252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pupae/pseuds/pupae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>stay, stay around me</i><br/><i>for the evening</i><br/><i>you don't have to be alone.</i><br/><br/>Louis Tomlinson has epilepsy. He's also incredibly lonely. Now, he's about to learn a lesson or two about trust and fate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> here is the first chapter of the first long fic I've ever written! title is from "Impossible To Place" by Antarctigo Vespucci. I'm bad at writing descriptions.
> 
> I'd like to take this opportunity to mention that **I AM NOT EPILEPTIC**. although I have done tons of research, I recognize that I still may be off-base. If you have knowledge on epilepsy that I clearly don't, _please_ don't hesitate to shoot me a message!! even though this fanfic is just for fun, I still don't want to misrepresent anything. (This goes for stuff about the British healthcare system, too... and I'm sure the dialogue is not perfect... and geography... but um, you know...)
> 
> I wrote this fic to help channel feelings about my own illness. I hope you enjoy it as much as it's helped me!

One still night, Louis had a seizure outside of Sainsbury’s -- as in, in public. As soon as he began to get the aura--spots in front of his eyes--he stumbled onto the bench next to the buggies. All he could do was sit there, trying to be as still as possible but still trembling, slumped over with the muscles in his arms gently convulsing. He felt weird, but he was getting good at waiting them out. He must have looked really strange, but luckily there was no one around. It only lasted about a minute, but every second was embarrassing, and by the end, his eyes were leaking pretty steadily. He looked up and watched a man with a beard in a Sainsbury’s uniform put out his cigarette and hurry inside.

He needed to buy pasta, still, he reminded himself. He was still shaky and humiliated and he really just wanted to drop dead, but he picked up some penne and dropped it onto the belt at some redheaded woman’s till. He managed to put on a cheery face for her and even make some small talk, but he noticed that the cashier behind her--the man with the beard--was still staring at him. He didn’t have the energy to tell him off. He just felt his face get hot and he took big, fast, angry steps out of the store and all the way home.

\--

It isn't as if Louis went to the doctor all the time as a kid; he had routine checkups like he supposed any other kid did. So he didn't know why being in the hospital gave him the feeling of being a child. Maybe it was being surrounded by harsh bright lights, the unfriendly color white, and cold tile that made him feel so small. And you would think he would get used to it, but every time he stepped into the hallway and breathed in that particular latex smell, and felt the neon light on his face, he got that same twisty feeling in the pit of his stomach that was becoming even more familiar than the hospital itself.

He sat in the same waiting room in the same chair that he had always sat in, ever since he started seeing Dr. Roberts three months ago. He’d been diagnosed six months ago, but he had to switch doctors because his first doctor, Dr. Stephanopoulos, was too aggressive with medication. Louis was too early on in his treatment to know any better, and just going along with whatever his doctor did really fucked him up for a while. Dr. Stephanopoulos’ meds gave him triggers that he hadn’t had before. The whole thing was embarrassing: when he had to call to terminate treatment he nearly cried on the phone from the stress of the situation and the thought of having to find a new doctor, possibly another one that’s supposed to help but might make the seizures worse. When he hung up, he did cry. Louis felt like he cried a lot more now. Like getting treatment for seizures was more stressful than just dealing with them.

He felt so jumbled up, all the time.

“Louis? Louis Tomlinson?” A nurse called, sounding about a million miles away. Louis waved his hand at her and followed her into Dr. Roberts’ office.

\--

It was an uneventful appointment. Louis was mostly honest: he said the seizures were still there, but not as frequent, but still there. He said he can prevent them well enough with proper rest and easing off of stressful situations, which wasn’t a lie, exactly, but it wasn’t something that happened often in practice. Then, Louis decided to tell Dr. Roberts about his racing thoughts, a recurring problem but one that had gone away for a while when he was seeing Dr. Stephanopoulos.

“Sometimes I get confused, or not confused, but jumbled up, and sometimes just stuck, stuck in my head. I end up having these really fast overlapping thoughts, and it’s not just when I get upset.” His voice started to wobble at the end, and his face was all tense. He needed to pause. “Otherwise, I’m okay,” he told him. 

He also said he’s been crying a lot more, but he didn’t know why, it’s probably a side effect, or something. He looked up at Dr. Roberts for approval and immediately wished he hadn’t mentioned it.

Dr. Roberts didn’t seem to care. He just nodded and typed a few things into Louis’s file. He printed out and handed Louis refills for his medication, then made sure, for the billionth time, that Louis knew where to reach him in case of emergency. He told Louis he wants him to have a blood test to check his this-and-that levels--Louis froze up and zoned out when he said “blood”--and asked him to please have it done at least a day before their next appointment.

“Drink loads and loads of water before they draw--not all at once, but spaced out,” Dr. Roberts instructed, typing something else into Louis’s file. “And you don’t have to fast, but you do have to get it done early in the morning.”

“How early?” Louis asked, dreading the answer. Really, though, Dr. Roberts could have replied ‘11 PM’ and it would be too early to have his blood drawn.

“No later than 9 AM,” Dr. Roberts said, then scooted his rolly chair forward. “Alright? Any other questions?”

Louis slumped in his chair. “Nope, that should do it.”

Dr. Roberts leaned forward and put a hand that was meant to be comforting on Louis’s shoulder. “No one blames you for getting a little caught up in your head sometimes, Louis,” he told him evenly. “There’s a lot going on in there, after all. You just take care of yourself.”

As Louis stuffed his hands into his pockets and walked quickly out of the cold building into the cold parking lot, he turned over what Dr. Roberts had told him in his head.

No one blames him. This, Louis knew, was dead wrong. When you’re having a seizure that turns out any way besides the way that friendly little puppet taught you it’d be in primary school, people basically think you’re faking or whining or being dramatic. It’s happened to him loads of times, even after he’d been diagnosed. Even--Louis pulled his coat tighter around himself--even his mum seemed disappointed that one time when he had to cancel a trip to visit her, because he’d missed a dose. To be fair, that day, seizures had made it really difficult to go to the pharmacy when he’d planned, on the way home from work. But maybe he should have had a plan B. It’s like ping pong in his head: Agree with them? Disagree with them? Stand up for yourself? See you’re in the wrong? Is it epilepsy’s fault? Or is it just Louis?

She seemed disappointed, but just as always, she didn’t say anything outright. Louis thought that almost made it worse. He wanted his mum to tell him exactly how to feel about himself, because he sure didn’t know. He didn’t know how to “just take care,” he wanted to tell Dr. Roberts; he didn’t know, and as stupidly dramatic as it sounds, he wanted to scream it to the whole street. Tears rolled down the back of his hand and stained the sidewalk. If he knew how to take care of himself, he would be doing it. All he had was a broken brain, barely a job, and a cashier at the only Sainsbury’s around who very clearly thinks he’s a freak.

Louis wanted to go home. But seeing as he can’t afford takeaway, he needed to stop by the supermarket. Not that he knew what to cook, but he may as well try to find something, he reasoned. He took a deep breath, sucking in all his tears, and entered the store.

\--

The staring cashier (S.C.) was at the very first till today. He was, predictably, staring at Louis as he walked inside. Louis thought he must have looked even more of a mess than usual due to his pathetic outdoor mini-cry. Louis gave S.C. a look and S.C. perked up, waving cheerfully. Louis didn’t see what there was to be cheerful about, at all. He noted that there was thankfully another till open besides S.C.’s and thought that he’d pick that one when he had to check out.

After fifteen minutes of incredibly difficult decision making (Coco Pops regular sized box, or large?!) Louis returned to the checkstands, only to discover that everyone's’ lights were now out, except for S.C.

“Brilliant,” Louis mumbled to himself, shuffling over to the stand. “Hi,” he mumbled to S.C., and slid his large box of Coco Pops and small bottle of Martinelli's onto the belt.

“Hello there! Find everything alright?” S.C. smiled, far too cheery for Louis’s taste.

“I had a bit of trouble finding a box of Coco Pops behind all the other boxes of Coco Pops, but yeah, I managed,” Louis replied. He didn’t look up from his wallet as he leafed through bills.

A beat. Louis guessed S.C.’s tiny, dopey brain was having trouble processing sarcasm.

“Okay,” S.C. said, sounding quietly defeated. Louis didn’t expect that reaction, somehow, and he felt a little regretful. Louis looked up. S.C.--actually, his name tag read ‘Liam,’ and had a nice little green smiley-face sticker on it, too-- _Liam_ looked about as defeated as he had sounded. He was staring down at the Martinelli's now, as if he had to concentrate very hard to scan it. Looking at Liam’s soft face made Louis want to shrink into himself.

Not much he could do now. Instead, Louis moved to the end of the checkstand to bag up his groceries.

“We’ve got a total of… £6.30,” Liam said slowly, still not making eye contact with Louis. Louis felt his face tense with embarrassment.

And that was it. Louis handed Liam a £10 note across the counter; he collected his change; he didn’t listen to what Liam said then; he mumbled “thanks, yeah, have a good one,” automatically in reply; he looped his grocery bag around his arm, shoved his hands back into his coat pockets and took fast, big steps outside, just like he had the very first day he met Liam.

Only it had started raining, now, and Louis sure didn’t have an umbrella. Just a few months ago, even after he was diagnosed, he wouldn’t have given this a second thought; it’s just water, after all. But the sheer stress of epilepsy, plus medication and the doctors, and the fucking blood tests, and now _this guy_ , Liam--Louis really, really didn’t know why he cared so much about what this asshole felt or thought at all, and he probably wouldn’t by tonight, but it was fresh on his mind--all of this seemed to make it so he felt anger and despair at things that would otherwise be simply annoying. It was stupid. He felt stupid.

He felt really stupid, paralyzed under the awning outside Sainsbury’s, squinting up at the cloudy, darkening sky. As if he didn’t know what to do; there was only one thing to do, which was buck up and walk home.

“Wait! Excuse me! Sir! Sir!”

Louis jumped and whirled around as Liam practically skidded to a halt right in front of him. His boots squeaked as he moved backwards, giving Louis a bit more space. After a moment of catching his breath, he held out nothing other than Louis’s bottle of Martinelli's.

“You’d forgotten your fancy apple juice,” Liam said. He couldn’t help but smile, presumably because he knew what he said was a little silly.

“Oh! Thought the bag was a little light, heh,” Louis laughed, and swung the bag back and forth on his arm. He hadn’t noticed, actually, but now that he thought of it he wasn’t sure how. He took the bottle of juice from Liam and stashed it in the bag. 

“Yeah.” Liam’s hand stayed outstretched for a moment, even after Louis took the bottle from him. He looked a little disappointed, like he’d wanted it to go a different way. 

Louis didn’t get it. “Well, thanks a lot, mate. Saved me a trip back here.” Really, there was no use holding a grudge. If Liam wanted to make up, Louis guessed he would comply; after all, he seemed very fragile, very sensitive, with that soft face and soft eyes and soft-looking hair and soft belly, in fact, and… Anyway, it’d be cruel to keep giving Liam the cold shoulder. Louis gave Liam a tight-lipped smile and patted him on the side of his arm (which _was_ soft, he found, but pleasantly sturdy), hoping it might kick-start the stuck vending machine that was a mute, smiling Liam.

“Sure,” Liam replied, his voice suddenly sounding lilted and pleased. His eyes crinkled up when he smiled big, which was fine, and didn’t matter much to Louis.

“It’s raining quite a bit, isn’t it?” Liam pointed to the sky, as if Louis didn’t know where rain came from.

“Yeah, and just my luck. I haven’t got an umbrella.”

“It was in the forecast,” Liam said slowly, but then he must have decided that was the wrong thing to say. “I mean, did you want to borrow mine? I’m almost off work. I could walk you home. Or you could just take it now and give it back later,” he stammered.

Louis had to do a mini double-take and felt his face get hot, trying to work through where Liam was coming from. Did Liam have a crush on him? Did crying turn him on, or something? Or did he know what was going on? Does Liam think he’s taking pity on him?

He quickly decided which scenario was more likely; Louis was not going to be pitied. “Um, no thanks.” He waved his hand as if to indicate ‘no, get that thought away.’ “Keep your umbrella, I’m alright. It’s just water. Not even comin’ down that hard, is it?”

Louis backed up a few steps into the rain. He couldn’t really see Liam anymore through all the water, but he could see Liam had his eyebrows knit and a very deliberate smile on. “Okay, well, it’s--” Liam started, cutting himself off with a nervous laugh.

“Very helpful, Liam, thank you!” Louis called over the rain. At this point, his face was on fire, and he was getting frantic. He really just wanted to get out of the general vicinity of Sainsbury’s before he could embarrass himself in front of this weird guy again. He gave Liam a forceful wave and ran into the rain in the direction of home.

Actually, it was comin’ down that hard. _Very_ hard. By the time Louis got home, his socks were soaked through, his hair was completely wet, and when he took his jacket off beads of water pooled on his floor. He still wouldn’t have taken the umbrella.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's chapter 2!

Louis spent the evening sorting laundry with _Something Else_ by The Kinks playing softly in the background. It seemed pretty silly to be playing a Kinks record softly, but it was raining, so it just kind of seemed wrong to have loud music on. He had two bowls Coco Pops for dinner and tried to ignore the vague shapes in the corners of his eyes, not to mention the overlapping thoughts in his head.

Even if he’d had the record on louder, even if he’d sung along, everything was still so quiet. Louis didn’t know how the static in his brain managed to be so loud while everything else around him was so crushingly silent. And the silence felt like something else, too, but he suspected he was just sort of hungry. Coco Pops were not meant to be dinner.

Louis sighed and laid his head on his desk, accidentally hitting his head on his Casio synthesizer at first. He was so tired, he could fall asleep like this. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to take deep breaths and prevent the seizure coming on from lack of sleep. He managed it, letting himself relax enough to fall asleep for a few minutes, before he woke himself back up and trudged to bed, still in his clothes.

\--

Of course, Louis waited until the very last day to get his blood tests done. It was half-justified, being that he was so tired all the time. It was _really_ loud at Keepmoat Stadium, where he worked a burger stand, which didn’t do well for his epilepsy. Having to take time to prevent seizures was exhausting, and it didn’t always exactly work. Plus, he was nearly always sleep deprived, having to commute in and out of Doncaster proper every day. It was, admittedly, a lot of work for a minimum wage job. Louis couldn’t ever bring himself to give it up, though; it was worth it all to be anywhere near the Rovers.

At least he thought it was. After a late night the night before, it took a lot to get out of bed at 7 that day, and he wasn’t even fully awake on the train ride over to the lab. He was so tired that he almost hurt himself with the clip on the pen as he signed in. Chuckling wryly at his own mistake, he slumped down in an uncomfortable green chair next to an artificial fern in the waiting room.

“Hey,” came a voice from a few chairs over. Louis looked up to find the only other person in the waiting room besides the receptionist, a young woman with bobbed pink hair, big, brown eyes, and strikingly long eyelashes, which he could see even from where he was sitting. He hadn’t even noticed her before, though, which was a testament to how sleepy he was; there was no way he could have ignored her, otherwise. She was, put simply, gorgeous.

Louis perked up a bit. “Hey,” he began, but the woman cut him off.

“Are you here to get your blood drawn? I am too,” she said, oddly cheerily for someone who was about to be stuck with a needle. She spoke quickly, and her eyes sparkled clearly.

“Uh, yeah,” Louis sighed sleepily. He hoped he seemed awake enough to look interested. “Guess that’s what the lab is for, actually, isn’t it?”

“You could’ve been interviewing for a position here. Or here to do maintenance, or,” she said in a way that struck Louis as the absolute opposite of thoughtful. It occurred to him that maybe he was misreading the cheery before. Maybe she was making fun of him.

He paused. “Do I really look like I’m here to interview?” Louis asked slowly, but with a hint of a sharp tone. He was beginning to lose patience with this woman, no matter how attractive she was.

“Could be,” she nodded. “I’m not gonna judge anyone by their looks.”

“What does that mean?” Louis scrunched up his face and leaned forward, but slumped back immediately. She was clearly one of these; he was too tired to deal with a catty girl, even if it meant he didn’t get to fuck her.

The woman laughed loudly. Too loudly. Louis couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but it was like she was buzzing, physically buzzing. Like a beehive was inside her. She leaned forward to respond, but the receptionist called her up to the desk before she could. All Louis heard was some mumbling about how she needed to sign this or that, and it really went downhill from there.

“Fuck you! I’m not signing that,” the woman snapped too loudly at the receptionist.

“Well, I’m sorry, Ms. Malik, but you--you’re going to have to, if you’d like to receive care here,” the receptionist replied quietly, but authoritatively. She was clearly trying to stay level, caught between losing her temper and being scared of the woman all at once.

“No. I’m going to get my tests done, and I’m going to get them done whether I sign this thing or not, which I’m not, because it’s _ridiculous_ , I shouldn’t have to, this must be illegal, withholding care, let me see your supervisor,” Ms. Malik said.

“There’s no supervisor, it’s just me, Ms. Malik, and there’s no need to speak so loudly, honestly,” the receptionist replied, her voice wobbling. “We’re in a medical facility, after all.”

“Don’t you...all condescending!” Ms. Malik said shrilly. Louis was sitting straight up in his chair now. He didn’t want to miss a moment of this, especially if he needed to make a run for it.

“Miss, I’m sorry, but if you keep shouting like that, I’m going to call security,” the receptionist said. Louis could see from his seat that she already had her hand on the telephone.

“Then why don’t you call,” Ms. Malik snapped, and leaned in, gripping the desk. “Because I’ll shout all I want!”

Louis couldn’t believe it. He actually didn’t have time to believe it, because judging by the proximity of Ms. Malik’s long, sharp nails to the receptionist’s screaming face, she was actually, truly going to claw her eyes out. Louis lept to his feet and grabbed Ms. Malik, who was still shouting profanities at the receptionist, around her middle, pulling her backwards.

“I don’t want you to take my blood anyway,” she hissed, shaking Louis off of her. “And you, what do you think you’re doing?”

“Stopping you from maiming this woman!” Louis spat. He let go of her, though, and she whirled around like a whip cracking.

Without warning, Ms. Malik slapped him clear across the face. She got close to his face, equally as angrily screwed up as her own, and said, “You don’t touch me without my permission.”

Louis brought a hand to his cheek. His heart was beating fast; he felt himself getting a little dizzy, but not enough to be worrying, for now. He couldn’t hardly pay attention to it, anyway, because he was so pissed off. Stunned, he paused for a moment before stammering loudly, “Yeah, well, I’ll remember that next time I’m--”

Ms. Malik didn’t give him the courtesy of letting him finish his sentence. She took off, slamming the waiting room door behind her.

“Thank you,” the receptionist breathed. “I’m sorry. That was so strange. It was just a signature she’d missed, I don’t...”

“Ah, yeah… yeah,” Louis said, his voice raspy from hissing at Ms. Malik. He ran an anxious hand through his hair.

“She left her bag,” the receptionist said, a little louder. Louis looked over and noticed, yes, there was a small black crossbody bag on the chair Ms. Malik had sat in. Louis groaned; knowing he probably didn’t have much time before Ms. Malik left the building forever, he quickly reasoned with himself that this was only so he could finish his sentence; returning the bag was secondary.

“Got it,” he said reluctantly to the receptionist, who breathed a relieved sigh again. He grabbed the bag and power-walked out the door.

It wasn’t long before he caught up to Ms. Malik, because although she was walking fast and angrily, she was also wearing some of the tallest high heels he had ever seen.

“Oi!” He called, jogging the last few feet between them to catch up to her. When she pretended not to hear him, he growled, “Oi, you. You left your bag at the place.”

She stopped, turned sharply to look at him. Breathing hard through her nose, she snatched the bag from him, then opened it, maybe checking to see if he stole anything.

“You’re welcome,” he snapped, looking straight into her eyes.

A couple of beats passed, and Louis felt like he was going to be looking into those huge brown eyes forever, because he definitely wasn’t going to be the first to look away. 

He felt like he had to talk. “Proper spectacle you made of yourself in there. You--” Louis said sharply, but Ms. Malik cut him off yet again.

“Shh,” she hissed sharply.

“Don’t shush me, who you think you’re shushin’?” Louis spat roughly, bristling like a cat.

Much to Louis’s confusion, Ms. Malik made a face like she’d just been given a diamond ring. “What’s your name?”

“Come on, what is this?” Louis asked sourly, gesturing to the area around him as if he were referring to the whole scene. Which he was, in a sense.

Ms. Malik giggled in a way that made her breasts shake a bit. Louis couldn’t help but notice how cute she was just then. He almost knew where this was going, because all too often his life tended to go the ‘that could never, ever happen, could it? yes, it did’ route lately.

But this really couldn’t ever happen, could it? Louis breathed out angrily and tried to decide.

Ms. Malik leaned in. “Kiss me,” she whispered, her voice as soft as a flower petal, and all of her thousands of eyelashes quite visible.

Yes, it did. It was an oddly passionate kiss, with lots of tongue. Louis didn’t know what else to do besides settle his hands on Ms. Malik’s hips and kiss her back. He wasn’t stupid; he took an opportunity when it presented itself. No, it wasn’t that. He didn’t know what he was doing. He never did anymore. Maybe he never did to begin with.

It was alright. She was beautiful.

“I’m Zayn,” Zayn laughed wryly when they broke. “By the way.”

“What… the fuck,” Louis breathed. “A second ago you slapped me.”

Zayn shook her head. Louis didn’t know what that meant. “Fuck me, okay?” she sighed into Louis’s mouth, her hands making their way all over Louis’s body, like they might if they were somewhere other than a medical building hallway, and Zayn was a normal person. “I want you to fuck me.”

Louis stood stunned for a second, then shrugged. “Okay,” he breathed, without allowing himself to think much more about it. It would probably be a lot more fun than blood work, anyway.

\--

Zayn didn’t fool around when it came to fooling around. They nearly tripped over the kitchen table getting into Louis’s flat. To be fair, it was a studio, so it wasn’t hard to bump into things. Zayn made it even easier, though, because she was kissing him aggressively and with reckless abandon. She really wouldn’t let him go, her arms tightly around his shoulders and her hands all over him, and Louis, with his sleepy brain, didn’t know if he was more turned on or overwhelmed. Truthfully, he didn’t really care. All his thoughts melded together anyway.

“This is like a--like we’re in a fucking movie, or something,” Louis breathed into Zayn’s face, after finally ripping his mouth from hers.

“Yeah? Is that good?” Zayn smirked and started pulling down Louis’s jeans as the two of them stumbled back over to Louis’s bed.

Louis blushed and laughed, his voice raspy with surprise. “Hold on, hold on, hold on,” he gasped. He sat at the edge of his bed and put his hands on his thighs protectively. They had to take this slow, because Louis still hadn’t said something he probably should have.

Zayn wasn’t having it, though. Louis didn’t think she even understood the concept of ‘take it slow.’ “What?” she asked faux-innocently. She licked her lips and knelt between Louis’s legs. “I’m gonna blow you, okay?” She put a gentle hand on Louis’s crotch, feeling his bulge.

Where a warm, hardening bulge should have been, there was a cold, soft one, which must have confused her. “You’re really cold, uh…”

Louis realized he still hadn’t told her his name. Interesting time she picked to ask for it. “Louis. Yeah. Uh,” he swallowed. He was getting dizzy again. He took a deep breath while Zayn repeated his name a couple of times.

“Okay, Louis, well, why’s your dick so cold?” She laughed, too loud again.

“‘Cause it’s cold outside, and it’s not a dick, it’s a soft packer, so,” Louis said, trying to keep his tone even and avoiding eye contact with Zayn. Who says stuff like that, anyway?

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” He paused. Best to get it over with. “I’m a transgender guy. I haven’t got a dick, besides the strap-on kind. But I’m still a boy, and all that, just with… So, um… dunno what you wanna do with that,” he said, making a shooing motion, as if to say ‘take what I just said away and deal with it somewhere else.’ Acting nonchalant was getting easier.

“I get it.” Zayn nodded. “I know loads of trans people. Dated a trans girl for a while. So, like, I get it,” she smiled.

“Oh. Well, good, alright,” Louis sighed. He was honestly relieved; he couldn’t count the amount of times a partner had just decided to be awful in the middle of things. Between that, doctors and work and everything, it’s hard to find good folks to fuck at all. Of course, he didn’t really expect to find a hookup while waiting to get blood drawn, but he’ll take what he can get.

“Mmhm,” Zayn hummed, moving up into Louis’s lap. Louis’s hands naturally found themselves on Zayn’s hips, and soon enough she was laying on top of him, straddling him as he laid on his back. She moved her hips, grinding softly on his legs. She was buzzing again.

“You’re really beautiful,” Louis said raspily, almost in disbelief. This was the same woman who slapped him. He felt like an idiot, and half didn’t care. Like most things, it was easier to ignore.

“Yeah,” Zayn breathed, and giggled, although Louis didn’t exactly know why. Zayn did a lot of things that didn’t make sense, but she really did make him feel good.

They fucked for hours. Hours and hours. Until Louis was out of breath, panting, and then some more. It was all but a miracle when Zayn finally fell asleep, curled up in Louis’s bed, just as pristinely beautiful as she had been before she came about a thousand times. Louis laid beside her, naked aside from his binder, and in the silence he realized he’d forgotten to take his pills.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi, it's chapter 3. meet Harry and Niall... sorta!

Just as he’d expected, Louis woke up to find Zayn gone without so much as a note. She did, however, leave her cell phone. Louis laughed to himself and grabbed her phone from the spot next to him where she’d slept. He shouldn’t snoop, which is exactly why he wanted to. Besides, she probably deserved it.

All he had time to see was loads of notifications for texts and missed calls from people named Harry and Niall before his own phone rang. It was on the floor, still in his jeans pocket. He rushed over to get it and answered kneeling on the floor in a pile of dirty clothes.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Louis? This is Dr. Roberts.”

Oh, yeah. That’s right. He had obligations.

“Oh, f--aha, hi,” Louis stuttered, trying to figure out an excuse.

“I was just calling to check up on you, see if you’re alright. We had an appointment this morning, did you…”

“Forgot, yeah, sorry,” Louis sighed. He couldn’t come up with anything compelling quick enough. His mind was still buzzing with overlapping thoughts and names. “I’m alright, though, yeah.”

“Right. Um, and I see you weren’t able to get your bloodwork done by yesterday, either.”

“No… sorry, something came up, yeah.” He knew that was a lame thing to say. It couldn’t be helped. Besides, what was Dr. Roberts going to do? It was Louis who lost out, he guessed. Not that he really wanted to bother with any of this anyway.

“I see,” Dr. Roberts said in a disappointed-father-type tone, which made his stomach turn, which made him annoyed. Really annoyed. “Well, if you could call back later and reschedule, yeah? And do get that blood work done.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s for your own health, Louis,” Dr. Roberts added.

“Yeah,” Louis replied, and he was afraid he couldn’t suppress the annoyance in his voice.

“Have a good day, then,” Dr. Roberts said flatly, and hung up.

Louis stayed kneeling in the pile of clothes for a few minutes. He got lost in his thoughts, and in turning over feelings of guilt; guilt for missing his appointment, not getting his blood drawn; guilt for being such a fuckoff; guilt for not being able to help it. Guilt for, as he just remembered, missing his dose yesterday. He wanted to go take it now, but he felt paralyzed, like his racing, overlapping thoughts were metal chains tethering him to the floor.

He stretched out his hands in front of his face and examined his fingers. If he unfocused his vision, his hands almost looked presentable, not anxiety-bitten and torn up. He wondered how he could get other people to unfocus their vision when looking at him, too.

\--

The more he thought about it, he hated Dr. Roberts.

And he had plenty of time to think about it, between the day he had called and their next appointment. He thought on the train about how Dr. Roberts never really properly listened to him. He thought in the shower about how he was always making condescending little comments in that father-knows-best tone. He thought while lying in bed, trying to masturbate, about how once, early on in treatment, he actually rolled his eyes while Louis was telling him about being trans (he turned over and went to sleep, then).

But while he was waiting for customers at work, he thought about how awful it was to find a new doctor, let alone get acquainted with one. Just the vague memory of the process made him want to lie down right then, on the floor of the stadium. Dr. Roberts didn’t work, and getting a new doctor seemed nearly impossible, from where Louis was standing. Maybe he could just go back to how it used to be: no more medication to keep up with, no more blood tests, no more exhausting appointments, no more invasive, condescending, asshole, loser doctors, who don’t even do anything.

He’d think about it.

By the time he got to the end of his shift, he was so hungry his stomach felt hollow. “Oops,” he said quietly to no one, knocking a pair of burgers onto the floor. (If they fell, employees were allowed to eat them; Louis took advantage of this often.) He wrapped them up, stuffed them into his bag and set off for home.

Even as he sat on the train double-fisting cheeseburgers, his stomach still felt hollow and empty. A whirlwind of stress in his head made the rest of his body feel like it wasn’t there. His limbs, while usable, felt wobbly; his vision unfocused a lot, too, the whole train ride home. Louis thought there wasn’t really anything to be done about it until he got home.

When the train got to his stop, though, he got a different idea, spotting the liquor store across the street. He stared at the place, with its glowing neon-lit interior, harsh but inviting against the backdrop of dull signs along the rest of the street. Why not just have a look, he thought, knowing it’d be much more than a look. Since I’m saying to hell with meds, right...

“Time for a pity party,” Louis muttered under his breath, tightening his coat around himself self-consciously. He set off to cross the street when he heard a ringtone coming from his bag that was different than his own. He’d been thinking about Zayn quite a bit today, so it didn’t take him long to remember he had her cell phone.

He stopped at the street corner and pulled out the phone. Just like every day since Zayn had left the phone at his place, the list of missed calls was about a mile long, many from “Mum,” but most from either “Harry” or “Niall.” He had never picked up a call from them before--mostly kept the ringer on silent, even--but he kept the phone on and charged, out of curiosity. Now, though, things were different: new no meds, new no doctor, maybe he’d find a new grocery store to shop at, and presently, new protocol dealing with the phone a slutty girl left at his apartment.

So, shrugging to himself, he tapped on the latest missed call, from Harry.

“Hello? Zayn?” A breathless, heavy Irish accent came over the line. Whoever it was was holding the phone way too close to their face, because their speech was garbled by friction against the speaker. “Zayn?!”

“Eh, no, but I’ve got her phone,” Louis replied, deflated. The feeling that this was all just a game quickly dissipated as he listened to the Irish person on the other end breathe fast and deep, almost like they were hyperventilating. Apparently, they couldn’t bear to respond; Louis listened to some shuffling, then the impact of the phone on something soft.

He heard more shuffling, then a different voice. Deeper than the first, and much smoother, less broken.

“Hello,” Person #2 said evenly. “Who is this?”

Louis didn’t want to give out his name just yet. Maybe he did still feel like it was a game, a little bit. “Just, I,” he stuttered, floundering. “I’m just a guy. Zayn left her phone at my place.”

Person #2 took a deep breath, like they were thinking. “You’ve seen Zayn, then? Where is she?”

“Wait, my turn,” Louis said sharply. “Who am I talking to?”

Another deep breath. “My name is Harry,” Person #2 said. Their voice was beginning to wobble; apparently they couldn’t stay even for very long. “I’m Zayn’s girlfriend.”

Not that surprising, but Harry seemed disproportionately upset. Louis was beginning to get creeped out. “Oh. Girlfriend,” Louis repeated.

“You don’t need to explain anything,” Harry said.

“Uh,” Louis replied dumbly. That wasn’t the reaction he was expecting.

“Do you know where she is?” Harry asked. She seemed desperate, pleading, which was an unusual tone to take with someone she’d barely been talking to for more than a few minutes.

“No, I haven’t got a clue. She just left her phone at my place, and you two kept calling, so I gave you a ring back just ‘cause, well, you kept calling.”

“Okay… you have no idea where she went?”

“Look, we fucked a few days ago, she slept over, and then she left. That’s all.”

Harry took a long pause. Louis immediately regretted swearing.

“She’s been acting really weird lately, and she’s been missing, and it’s not the first time, but it’s…” Harry trailed off, like she wanted to say more but was holding back. Naturally; Louis thought she might start crying. It didn’t make him feel good, how much she might reveal to him. He didn’t want to know.

“If you find her, let her know I’ve got her phone,” Louis spat quickly, and hung up.

He breathed in sharply and tensed and untensed his face. He held the phone tightly in his hand, as if to ground himself; he didn’t know why he suddenly felt so creepy. Maybe it was the looming guilt for helping a girl cheat on her girlfriend, even though there was no way he could’ve known. More likely, he felt very uneasy about possibly being involved in a missing persons case. In a fit of pink-faced guilt, he texted Harry his phone number from Zayn’s phone, telling her to let him know if Zayn got home.

He shoved the phone back into his bag roughly, looked up at the black sky, looked down at the concrete, and walked into the liquor store.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not super important at this point, but Harry is also trans. i don't know why i'm mentioning it here i have no idea what im doing


	4. Chapter 4

He didn’t buy anything. As much as he wanted to swear off his medication and treatment as some sort of revenge plot against his illness, he decided that, in practical terms, he’d probably benefit more from not dying.

Instead, Dr. Roberts became a by-gone just like Dr. Stephanopoulos. Calling to terminate treatment wasn’t easy, but it was easier now that he’d already done it once. He picked a random doctor off of the NHS website to replace him named Dr. Bhutta. _Just for refills_ , he had told himself; if he didn’t think about the consultation and the blood tests and anything involving actually _talking_ to the doctor, he could convince himself to keep going. Like maybe not giving up on this entire process was bearable; maybe it was even worth it.

But just because he was being responsible doctors-wise didn’t mean he wasn’t exhausted. After the night before, Louis was extra thankful for his day off (that he had taken himself; meaning, he called in sick to work). And as he sat down at his desk, opened his laptop and plugged in his keyboard, he smiled and thought to himself that he was spending the day doing what he did best.

Many experimental plinks and plunks on his Casio and a half-completed sheet of lyrics later, Louis felt productive and satisfied. He was trying to work out part of the melody that would become the bridge when a different plink came from his bed: his text alert. He reached back to grab his phone, but before he could even pick it up, three more texts came in rapid-fire.

_Hey !!!!_   
_It’s Zayn :P_   
_So you have my phone .._   
_I need it back ! Obviously ha_

Louis laughed to himself under his breath.

_How did you get my number ?_

He half-expected her to say something like she’d hand-drawn a copy of his ID, tracked down his mother, and got it off of her. Not much could have creeped him out more than the devastated way Harry had sounded the night before.

_got it off Harry’s phone_   
_You talked to her ?_

He was right; Louis wasn’t creeped out. But he was a little angry. How could she act so nonchalant about cheating on her girlfriend? On top of this, he was annoyed with himself for feeling angry on behalf of a girl he hadn’t even met.

_Come get your phone_

A simple, to-the-point text would suffice for now. He threw his phone across the room, determined not to think about Zayn; he had better things to use his energy on. Zayn sent about five more texts after that, but Louis switched his phone on silent and climbed back into bed.

He checked the time: 4:30 pm. He had spent more time songwriting than he thought. He closed his eyes. A therapist he had once told him that, being sick in his brain, it was important for Louis to ration out mental energy. If something made him upset that he couldn’t work through for whatever reason, it was better to set the thought aside or toss it out than get worked up and risk a seizure. Louis tried to follow this advice, but sometimes it led to tossing out solvable problems that were too frustrating at first glance, allowing him to give up too easily. Mostly, it got Louis thinking cyclically and more jumbled up than he was to begin with. But, thankfully, sometimes it worked--as it was now.

He thought he should try to make dinner, but he wasn’t hungry and the effort it took to set aside the Zayn Issue had tired him out a little anyway. He laid in bed and stared at the ceiling for fifteen minutes.

\--

A blink of an eye later, Louis woke up to knocking on his door. He groaned and sat up slightly, checking the time on his phone: 6:03.

“I don’t even remember falling asleep…” he mumbled under his breath, as the knocking continued.

“I’m coming! I’m coming! Fuck,” Louis said loudly, and got out of bed, careful not to stand up too fast. He trudged to the door and opened it.

“Hey,” Zayn said, exactly as expected.

“Wait right there,” Louis said flatly. He walked inside to grab Zayn’s phone from his bag, but much to his dismay, Zayn followed.

“I just wanted to say I’m sorry.” She shut the door behind herself.

“I didn’t ask you to come in. Thought vampires couldn’t enter a place unless they were invited,” Louis grumbled.

“I’m trying to apologize,” Zayn said, a touch of annoyance in her voice. Louis noticed that there was something different about her, as if her voice was smoother, or something else he couldn’t put his finger on.

“Yeah, well, maybe you should have--” Louis began, but wasn’t exactly sure how he wanted to finish. Instead, he started over. “You had a girlfriend, Zayn, honestly, like, what the fuck? Right? How is that alright? She sounded…”

Zayn was staring at Louis intently, eyebrows knit. She was listening.

“You should have heard her. She sounded really heartbroken,” Louis said lowly, avoiding eye contact.

“The both of them, I bet...” she said lowly, avoiding eye contact.

“What?”

“I’ve got two partners. A boyfriend and a girlfriend.”

“Brilliant, even better. So you double-cheated with me. You’re a real loser, you know that?”

“Yeah, I know,” Zayn said, in a tone like she’d just been lightly reprimanded by a teacher.

Louis didn’t know how to respond to Zayn’s unperturbed attitude after he confronted her about cheating on her--apparent--two partners. He crossed his arms and looked at her, annoyed.

“It’s just that there’s not much I can do,” Zayn shrugged, slightly deflated.

“What’s that mean?” Louis asked, not that he cared. Not that he should care.

“I have bipolar disorder,” Zayn admitted, looking Louis right in the eye. “So I have manic episodes. They’re periods of time when my brain basically goes into hyperdrive, and I have a really, like, intense mood, like, really ‘up.’ Anyway, I do all these reckless things, usually, and I can’t control it too well.”

Suddenly, Louis realized what was different about Zayn: the beehive was gone.

“And sometimes I just go around fucking people, and one of those people was you.” Zayn sighed hard. “So, I’m sorry. It was just a reckless thing. I hardly even remember being with you, like. Hope you’re not too offended.”

Louis knew a little bit about bipolar disorder; he was curious as to whether he might have it, once, so he read up about it online. Everything about Zayn suddenly made sense: talking way too fast, trying to kill the receptionist, deciding to hook up with Louis after exchanging maybe twenty words with him, apparently being missing from home for days. The buzzing.

“Type one or two?” Louis asked evenly, cocking his head slightly.

Zayn straightened up a little bit. “One,” she replied softly. “You came in at the tail end of my second manic episode. We thought I was done after the first one, but I guess… I need a meds adjustment. You get it, right?”

“What?” Louis snapped defensively.

“Oh, I dunno,” Zayn shrugged. “I don’t remember much about your place, but I remember seeing lamotrigine on your shelf. I take it too, so, I thought…” She shrugged again.

“Oh, uh…” If Louis wasn’t softening to Zayn before, he was really doing so now. He felt stupid, like maybe she was tricking him, but she really did seem troubled. And if she really was sick, just like he was, Louis couldn’t justify being _that_ angry with her.

“Uh, yeah,” Louis shrugged, trying to seem as unfussed as possible. “I take it for epilepsy.”

“Do you?” Zayn nodded, curiously. “Then you get it.”

“Yeah, I guess I do.”

The two of them stared at eachother for a beat. Louis wondered what Zayn was thinking. Was she feeling oddly comfortable, having found someone to share solidarity with? Was she feeling annoyed and confused and all-around weird, because of how odd the situation was? Or was she like Louis, feeling all of that at once?

“Look,” Louis said firmly. “I never thought we were gonna get together or anything, so I’m not, like, upset about you or anything like that. You know, finding out you cheated.”

Zayn raised her eyebrows. “But?”

“But it was a shit decision, and I feel weird. But I guess you know it was bad, so, alright.” Louis bobbed his head thoughtfully. “I don’t really care too much. I forgive you.”

“Thanks,” Zayn sighed. Clearly, Louis’s forgiveness wasn’t really her priority.

“And, uh,” Louis started. “Uh.” Louis walked past Zayn to rifle through his bag, which was hanging on the handle of a cupboard. He pulled out her phone and programmed his number into it.

“Just… I know what it’s like to disappoint people, ‘cause of your brain,” he said, a little shyly, as he handed the phone back to her. “And I’ve been doing this for a while now. The meds thing. So text me if you need to.”

Zayn nodded slowly. “Thank you, yeah,” she said quietly. Louis noticed how much of a contrast it was, comparing Manic Zayn’s loud, fast speech, to Zayn’s quiet, calm one. He half-wondered if it really was so quiet, or he only thought so because Manic Zayn was so intense. In any case, he liked it. It was kind of sticky, like honey. He guessed the buzzing bees left it behind.

Louis nodded. He was a little embarrassed, having been so vulnerable, talking about illness with a stranger. So he was thankful when Zayn gave one last half-nod, another “thank you,” and left his apartment.

He had thought that giving Zayn her phone back would be the end of the Zayn Issue, but as he leaned against his front door and sighed, he was a little glad it wasn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note: I don't have epilepsy, but I do have bipolar I disorder, and a lot of Zayn's stuff is based on my actual medical journey!!!!!! :0)


End file.
